Reality
by VulporAnime
Summary: With the start of Sword Art Online. Many players are attracted to the game for a variety of different reasons. One person, Taichi, seeks out SAO as an escape from the real world because of his illnesses, but little does he know that this escape is not one of relaxation and along with his deteriorating health, Taichi comes to realize that times running out.


_Just a short, maybe long, story about SAO. It's really nothing special unless you deem it to be. I'm just bored right now and feel like picking up the keyboard and typing up another fanfiction. At another note this story takes place in a parallel universe, so things that should or shouldn't have happened happened as well as the extensive usage of English will be prevalent so i'll tend to avoid usage of Japanese in this. Hope you guys enjoy it, critiques and such are welcomed as long as they aren't just blunt out insulting. xP_

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**Chapter 1: What Have I Left Behind?**

"Taichi!" called a familiar girly voice from the front door, "We're going now! Are you sure you want to stay at home?"

"No, it's okay," replied Taichi in the happiest voice he could muster as he called out from the kitchen, "You guys can go have fun! I'll be fine here."

"Taichi, you don't sound fine..." came the worried reply.

Taichi sighed in annoyance as he brushed back his slightly long brown hair. It was always a mystery to him how his sister, Yui, always knew when he was really fine or not. Deciding that telling her to leave out front would get things moving. so he stood up from his breakfast in the kitchen and walked out to the front door where he met three worried faces.

"It's alright everyone," he said with a sheepish grin, "I'll try to get some rest and things will get better. I might even come outside today."

Yui gave Taichi a doubtful look before glancing back at their mother and father, who were waiting farther out the front door. They all, one at a time, looked at each other before giving a nod of approval.

"Alright, Taichi, we're trusting you to stay at home alone today, but give us a call if anything happens." said his father with a stern look on his face, "We don't want any incidents happening again."

"Alright Dad, alright," grimaced Taichi as he looked down and recalled previous incidents where his poor health was nothing but a problem to his family. Forcing them to constantly care for Taichi and make sure he was alright. He then looked up and forced a smile.

"Don't worry Dad! Everything will be fine! Now get going everyone, you don't want to be late for the family soccer match, now do you?"

"No we don't!" said Taichi's Dad as he checked his wrist watch, "Let's get going!"

And with that, the three of them hurried out to the car. Taichi watched them go as he leaned against the door, a slight frown on his face. The three of them were all quite tall, super athletic, and energetic beyond compare. He then looked down at himself. He was scrawny, had little to no athletic ability, and barely had enough energy to move around the house.

_How come I'm the one like this.._ He asked himself as he looked down at his pale hand, but a honking horn brought him out of his state of mind. He looked up to see his family in the car waving to him goodbye. Hesitantly, Taichi lifted his hand as well and waved.

"Go get 'em guys! I know you can! I'll be cheering you all on from here!" called Taichi as the car slowly started to disappear from view. A moment passed as Taichi stood at the door before he turned around and walked inside towards the kitchen.

Once there, he decided to finish up his cereal before heading upstairs to what he considered, his sanctuary. The only place in the world where he could escape the brutal life he knew as reality. For Taichi wanted to escape reality, he didn't want to stay in a world where he was unable to do anything because of his health. For this reason, he bought and played videogames, but not just any videogames. He specifically bought RPG's and MMO's and today was the release date of one of the biggest MMO's that has ever come into existence, Sword Art Online.

As Taichi finished up his cereal, he held the case of Sword Art Online, or SAO , for short. He examined it carefully, flipping it back and forth trying to soak up every scrap of information he could get from the case alone. It seemed weird to do that, but Taichi saw it as being worth it because SAO was his key to a new world. A digital world where he could freely choose to do what he pleased without having the consequence of ill health.

Taichi gave a sigh of excitement at the thought of it, so he quickly placed his empty bowl in the sink and rushed upstairs to his room. He looked at his watch as he opened the door to his room.

"Good I have about fifteen minutes until the grand release of SAO," he said to himself as he quickly plugged his Nerve Gear into the computer, "That should be enough time to set everything up."

Fifteen minutes passed as Taichi frantically scrambled around his room, plugging in wires here and there and making sure the internet connection was fine. He was normally quite lethargic and dull, but when it came to gaming, Taichi was most active.

"Alright!" he said to himself as he closed the curtains in his room, laid down, and popped the Nerve Gear on his head, "It's time to start a new life. One where I can actually do something for myself without being such a hindrance to my family... Link Start!"

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"Ahahah! This is amazing!" exclaimed Taichi as he raced his new friend, Hayate, across another prairie the two had found whilst roaming the first floor of Aincrad.

"I know! Isn't this so much better than being forced to stay inside all the time?" asked Hayate as he stopped running and plopped down onto the grass.

"Much better!" agreed Taichi as he too plopped down on the grass next to Hayate, "You know. It's nice meeting someone else on here that has the same or close to the same situation as me."

"You didn't think you were alone, now did you?"

"Oh no. Of course not. It's just... rare, you know?"

"Yeah I understand."

Hayate turned to look up at the sky, Taichi followed suite and they both lay there in silence for a moment.

"I wish I could stay here forever, Taichi."

"Yeah... me too. Hey, speaking of staying, how long have we been playing this game?"

Hayate laughed at the question before sitting up and opening his menu to check the time.

"Damn," he said as he saw the timer, "We've been on here for at least 6 hours! I need to get off now or else I'll miss dinner!"

"Alright alright, well see you later then," laughed Taichi as he stood up and waited for Hayate to log off and dissolve, but nothing happened, "Something wrong?"

"Yeah. Open your menu Taichi. There's no _log off_ button."

Taichi curiously opened his menu too and found that there was not a _log off _button on his menu either.

"Strange," he said, "Maybe it's a glitch in the system or-"

A blind blue light suddenly erupted around Taichi, making Hayate jump back before he too erupted into blue light.

"Taichi? Are you alright?" asked a familiar voice. Taichi groaned and opened his eyes to find himself staring up at a red sky that was tiled with hexagons that said numerous amounts of digital coding. Hayate was also looking down at him, but this wasn't the Hayate he had grown used to seeing.

"Who... where... what's going on?!"

"Well... I'm not sure how to explain this, but I'll give it my best-"

"...Now, I have finished the official tutorial for Sword Art Online. Players—I wish you luck," boomed a deep voice. Taichi immediately scrambled to his feet and looked up at the sky, which was now clearing of it's red hexagons. All Taichi caught a glimpse of, was a huge robe ascending into the sky and disappearing.

"What the-!" began Taichi, but he was cut off by screams from the huge crowd of players around him, "Hey! Why are you all-"

But Taichi felt Hayate grab his shoulder, which made him stop yelling.

"I'll explain later, Taichi, but right we've got to get going. As an experienced gamer, in our situation we've got to get moving. I'll explain along the way."

"A-alright!" gulped Taichi as he followed the person that looked nothing like Hayate, but had his voice. This made him think, if Hayate looked different, did that mean the Taichi himself looked different? He looked down at his hand and instead of seeing a finely tanned palm, he saw a pale one with little to no muscle to it at all.

Hayate seemed to have noticed his realization.

"If you're thinking what I think you're thinking right now, Taichi, you're right. What's happened is that all of our avatars have been changed to what we look like in real life. As you can see, I'm not super tall or anything like my avatar."

Taichi looked at the _new_ Hayate and noticed some differences, but he was still the same with black hair and green eyes. It's just the fact that he was shorter. No other conversations were made between the two of them as Hayate led Taichi out of the main city.

"We're to head out to the first village and work our way to the 2nd floor of Aincrad," panted Hayate as the two of them stood at the exiting gate.

"Why?" panted Taichi as he tried to catch his breathe, "What's the rush? Can't we take our time?"

"No."

"Huh?"

"You really were knocked out cold from that teleport, Taichi. I didn't even know that could knock someone out!"

"Honestly, Hayate. Stop avoiding it. What the hell is going on!"

Hayate sighed and looked down. He then pulled out his sword and gripped it tightly in his hand.

"We're going to have to beat SAO, Taichi. Or else we'll be trapped in here forever!"

"Well why can't we take our time?"

"Because, the sooner we get out, the sooner we get out of this living hell."

"Wait... I still don't under-"

"When you die...Taichi, you die for good..."

And at that moment, as the two of them stood there, Taichi finally realizing how grave the situation was and realized what he had left behind. His family, a few friends, and life as he knew it. He didn't ask for this. He just wanted to be deemed useful in his family and by gaming, he thought he would find the way. But all it's brought was more pain and suffering for his family.

Taichi clenched his fist and slammed it onto the ground. Tears starting to roll down his eyes as the fact that if he wasn't good enough at this game, he would really die. Or if he didn't try at all, he'd end up living the rest of his life as a shell, trapped in a virtual world.

"We're getting out of here Hayate. We're getting out of here."

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_Alright and there's chapter 1. Hopefully it's an interesting enough start. Again critiques and comments are greatly encouraged, who knows. Your commenting may alter the course of this story since the plot isn't 100% set in stone as of now. And with that, I must say see you next time in Chapter 2._

Chapter 2: Truly Alone


End file.
